Hi all,
[For those on public-esw-thes a 'note' here is a working group note, i.e. a
document published by SWBPD-WG]
Guus said at the F2F that it would be a good idea to publish notes that
don't even have the word 'SKOS' in the title ... i.e. notes that are
specifically written for the controlled vocabularies user community.
I agree with this. The draft at [1] entitled 'Quick Guide to Publishing a
Controlled Vocabulary on the Semantic Web' is a first go at doing this.
However, [1] is deliberately very short, and doesn't go near many of the
issues that need to be covered.
What about a note called something like 'Guide to Publishing Controlled
Vocabularies on the Semantic Web', with a table of contents looking
something like:
Guide to Publishing Controlled Vocabularies on the Semantic Web
Step 1: Allocate URIs
Step 2: Create an RDF Description
Simple Term Lists
Terms with Definitions (Glossaries)
Vocabularies with Non-Preferred Terms
Structured Vocabularies
Hierarchies
Associative Relationships
Thesauri
Thesauri with Node Labels
Thesauri with Guide Terms
Faceted Thesauri
Classification Schemes
Step 3: Publish the RDF Description
... with examples (real as available) that use features from SKOS Core as
necessary?
The other thing is that, even with a document like the above, I still think
a 'SKOS Core Guide' is necessary, because we need some sort of descriptive,
normative reference that says 'this is how you should use SKOS Core'.
If we did have something like the above, we could restrict the scope of the
'SKOS Core Guide' to much less than what is currently at [2] ... i.e. the
point of [2] would then be just to specify the proper usage of SKOS Core,
with examples as necessary. These examples would have to be made up for the
purpose, because nobody has yet deployed according to the current
specification of SKOS Core.
So then the list of documents proposed for the PORT TF would become:
A. SKOS Core Vocabulary Specification
A human-readable description of the SKOS Core RDF vocabulary,
including status information (essentially a 'namespace document' for SKOS
Core)
B. SKOS Core Guide
Descriptive normative reference for how to use SKOS Core.
C. Quick Guide to Publishing Thesauri on the Semantic Web
Very short how-to document with a concrete example.
D. Guide to Publishing Controlled Vocabularies on the Semantic Web
Extended document, exemplifying how to express various types of
controlled vocabulary in RDF, with concrete examples as available.
Does this seem like a good idea? I know I'm making more work for myself and
the PORT TF, but I want the focus scope and aim of each document to be very
clear. For a start, this makes them much easier to write. (I realised that
with [2] I'd been trying to do two things at the same time.)
Comments on this?
Al.
[1] http://www.w3.org/2004/03/thes-tf/primer/2004-11-17.html
[2] http://www.w3.org/2004/02/skos/core/guide/
---
Alistair Miles
Research Associate
CCLRC - Rutherford Appleton Laboratory
Building R1 Room 1.60
Fermi Avenue
Chilton
Didcot
Oxfordshire OX11 0QX
United Kingdom
Email: a.j.miles@rl.ac.uk
Tel: +44 (0)1235 445440